Algerian Solitaire

Foundations and reserves

How to play Algerian Solitaire

Twelve cards go out as eight small tableau depots — four holding two cards, four holding one. Twenty-four more form six reserve piles of four, with only the top of each available. The remaining sixty-eight are the stock.

The eight foundations come in two sets. Four are built up in suit from the ace, and four are built down in suit from the king. Both sets take thirteen cards, and every one of the 104 cards has to reach one of them.

Tableau depots build up or down within a single suit, which mirrors the foundations. Moves are one card at a time and an empty depot accepts anything. The stock, when you use it, deals two cards on to every reserve pile at once.

Up or down

Which direction a card may travel

Reading both directions

Algerian Solitaire strategy

Decide each middle card's direction deliberately. Look at both foundations of that suit and send the card to whichever is further behind — or hold it in a depot if neither is ready.

Work the six reserve tops before dealing. They are half your available cards, and a deal buries all six at once under two fresh layers.

Use depots for suited pairs. A depot holding a 7♠ can take the 6♠ or the 8♠, so a depot with a middle card in it is far more useful than one holding an ace or a king.

Empty reserve piles before the stock runs out. They become usable the moment it does, and arriving at that point with two empty piles is a much better position than arriving with none.

Where it dries up

How an Algerian board runs dry

Sending a card up when it was needed coming down

Every rank has two destinations, and choosing wrong is the characteristic Algerian mistake. Send the 8♠ to the up-foundation and the down-foundation still needs its own 8♠ — there are only two in the deck. Before playing a middle rank, check what both foundations of that suit are waiting for.

Burning the tableau depots as storage

Twelve cards across eight depots is a very small tableau, and depots build in suit only. A depot filled with a card that has no suited neighbour available is effectively closed. Keep them for cards you can actually extend.

Dealing before working the reserve tops

A deal drops two cards on to every reserve pile, burying six playable cards in one action. The six reserve tops are most of your board — exhaust every move they offer before touching the stock.

Two-deck odds

Is Algerian Solitaire winnable?

Not often. Two decks with no group moves and a twelve-card tableau is a narrow board, and the two-directional foundations create a genuine decision on almost every middle-rank card — one you can get wrong without noticing until much later.

What makes it interesting rather than merely hard is that the mistakes are legible. A stalled down-foundation usually traces back to a specific card you sent the other way. We do not publish a win rate: the figure moves with the reserve refill rule, and this version keeps empty reserves locked until the stock is spent.

Both-way foundations

Games that build from both ends

Two-directional foundations are rare. The comparison worth making is against the games that share Algerian's shape but commit to a single direction.

Forty Thieves is the useful contrast: the same two decks and the same one-card-at-a-time discipline, but with all eight foundations pointing the same way, so no card ever presents a choice of destination.